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[drebinf]

Hi all,

I'm hoping someone can help me here.  I've been trying to get my TV Shows working "properly" and believe I'm 80% of the way there.

I started with particles from a VIDEO_TS folder but the issue I kept hitting was that the cover art for the individual episodes / particles would appear to over-write the cover art for the Series.

Fine, particles appear to be a little work-in-progress like for me so I've just spent the day ripping the episodes out in to MKV format with MakeMKV.  I have named the episodes <Series>.s0xe0y.mkv (e.g. Black Adder.s01.e01.mkv) and saved them in a folder structure such as <Series>\<Season x>\

Then I imported them into JRiver and it has done the same thing!  The episode cover art is appearing in the Series and Season views instead of the Series or Season cover art!  Argh!

That leads us on to the next problem in my setup.  I have configured the TV Shows view (in Theatre View) such that the Series is shown and then when you go in to the Series, the Season is shown.  I have done this with 2 expressions under the "Details" section of TV Shows -> Series in Options -> Theatre View.  The expressions are:

Expression to group by: [Sort Name][Series]
Expression to display: [Series, 1]
Sorting: Name
Matching: Match any

The [Sort Name] field is an additional library field I have added so I can sort the library in the order I feel like (for example I have travelled and have some movies from Germany, these movies I keep with their original covers but sort based upon their English names).

The second expression is:

Expression to group by: [Series],[Season]
Expression to display:
if(ifEmpty([Season, 1], 1])
 [name, 1],
if (isEmpty([Season Name, 1], 1]),
 Season [Season, 1],
 Season [Season, 1] - [Season Name, 1]
 )
)

The "Season Name" is another custom field I have created.  This is for seasons like Black Adder whereby some of the Seasons have a name (e.g. Black Adder Goes Forth). 

This is another question: the [Season Name] never appears to match?  The logic I am trying to convey above is:
If the Season is empty, display the name (e.g. Black Adder's Christmas Carol)
If the Season is not empty, then if the Season Name is empty display "Season x" else display "Season x - [Season Name]". 

Also in this second level menu, the titles are displayed as "Black Adder's Chri..." instead of the full title like at the Series level.  How / where do I adjust the font on this sub-level so that it displays the full title?

So lots of questions there but I hope I have given sufficient information for someone to assist. 

Probably the most frustrating (because I was experiencing this with particles as well so went and started ripping my TV Series to .mkv format) is that the cover art for the Series and the Seasons is displaying the cover art of the first episode of the first season.  I have checked the cover art folder, there is a Series and Seasons subfolder in each and they both have the correct artwork in place but it is being ignored by MC.  I have even tried saving a folder.jpg in the "Season X" subfolder where I have saved the appropriate seasons .mkv file but still to no avail.

[blgentry]

The easiest way to get Series and Season cover art is to make a set of TV views that show categories as Series and then Season.  Then, with the Series shown, highlight your series and do Cover Art > Get From Internet .  This will look up Series and Season cover art and put it in the correct place.

Series and Season cover art are a little bit special.  I'm not sure how the expressions you've listed might be interacting with the Series and Season art display.  They might be preventing it actually.  But I'm not sure.

That's another reason to construct a more basic Series and Season view and get it working.  That way you can be sure that you've got the right art and that the basic functionality works.  From there you can work on your more complex expression based views.

Good luck.

Brian.

[drebinf]

OK for everyone else struggling with TV Shows and trying to get them to display by Series and then by Season with the appropriate cover artwork, this is what I have done and it appears to be working so far.

It doesn't matter if the TV Shows are particles or individual files, as stated earlier I have found particles to be a bit flaky so have moved to extracting MKV files for all my TV episodes but who knows, maybe in future I may go back to the VIDEO_TS folder layout I keep my DVD's in.

So I went in to the options for Theatre View (when in Standard View, go to Tools -> Options -> Theatre View and scroll down under the "Items To Show" section and select "TV Shows".

Select "Add" and choose "New Library Item" from the drop-down list.  Highlight the "New Library Item" and change the Name under the "Details" section to something that suits you.  Don't call it the same as the existing one "Series" in case you need to revert for whatever reason, it can easily be renamed later.

Change the "Options" under the Details section to and take the tick out of the "Display 'All' as a choice" (unless you want that option).

Under the "Details" section select "Add" and choose "Expression".  In the "Expression to group by" field type in TVInfo(SeriesDisplay).  Leave the "Expression to display" blank, Sorting as "Ascending" and Matching as "Match Any".  Select OK to save.

Now do that again but with a different expression - under the "Details" section select "Add" and choose "Expression".  In the "Expression to group by" field type in TVInfo(SeasonDisplay).  Select OK to save.

Select OK again in the Options window to save and BANG we are done.

Now TV Series in Theatre View will show as Series -> Season -> Episode with the appropriate cover artwork as long as your TV Shows are marked as tagged as:
Media Type: Video
Media Sub Type: TV Show
Series: <all in the one Series have the same Series name>
Season: <appropriate Season # filled in>
Episode: <episode #>

If it is displaying as you would like then you can remove the original "Series" from under "TV Shows" and rename your new entry to the same.

I would have uploaded images to suit but unfortunately the unfinished product of M$ Edge seems to be having difficulty with that button however I do hope this helps some people after all the head-banging-on-wall I've spent trying to get this sorted.

[RoderickGI]

What you have described is the standard default "Video>Shows>Series" view definition.

All of the "TVInfo(...)" commands are described here: http://wiki.jriver.com/index.php/Miscellaneous_Functions#TVInfo

[drebinf]

Yup, dunno when or how I managed to screw that up.

Oh well, live and learn.